Welcome to Creativity Class!
Here you will find archives from old classes and prompts for new posts. During the semester you should write at least 5 posts and 5 comments on the posts of others. You may react to a class exercise, discusssion, presentation, or lecture; or you may enclose a link and write about it. A rubric for how your posts will be graded is included in the syllabus.
For your first post, you may wish to write about the suggestion for Blog Choice 1:
Look at the websites in the first section of Moodle, and write a blog entry on your use of one of them.
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This entry is in response to the article discussing what most of us were not taught about being creative. I think the article makes many valid points, some of which I had never considered before. One of these examples includes the point that the experts are often negative. Looking back, I realize that most people who have told me I will not be able to accomplish a creative goal would be considered experts in their related field. I find that art teachers especially fall into this category. I went to a high school that placed a large emphasis on the arts and in my own high school experience I encountered two specific types of art teachers. The first believed that they were God’s gift to the world. My art and my classmate’s art was regularly compared to their own, judged harshly, and often barely received a passing grade. I cannot even count how many times an idea of mine was not approved or I would be made to start a project over. I despised these classes because I felt I was not free to express myself, and instead was forced to follow a certain style that fit into the conformist idea of “art.” The second type of teachers I encountered was exactly the opposite. These teachers encouraged me to express myself in a way I felt appropriate. They provided constructive criticism, but more often than not they were enthused by whatever I made, as long as it reflected the thought and effort that was expected. I realize now that the classes taught by the encouraging art teachers forced me to tap into my own creative thought process, as I was not given specific direction as to what was expected. They are primarily the reason I consider myself a creative person today. I believe the other teachers were a stifling influence to individuality and creativity. If I had not taken classes taught by the latter, I am sure I would refuse to draw or paint even to this day.
Very thoughtful, Alexandra! Were you in class the day I discussed my nasty high school art teacher? Such people should not be teachers and create fears and blocks.
I also loved the creativity article.
This is a post about creativity being taught in public school. My Alma mater Castle High School had a four year course on functional fixedness. The other day we watched a video on the candle stick experiment, that video reminded me of the refinement of resourcefulness in high school. Castle is one public school so it get plenty poor kids that go. We never had choke school supplies like Kamehameha kids get, we had to share our crayons. Public school kids get weened of functional fixidness. If you no more one thing you gotta use something else. If no more on good lunch we would go into the Ala Carte line and make Castle High Jabacos. First you get a Jumbo Jack and then you add two tacos. What do yo get? A Jabaco!
My thoughts on why I’m taking the creativity course and what I hope to achieve.
As I start thinking about the creativity class and what I hope to gain from it, the first thing that comes to mind is a sad awareness. Over the past four or five years, I have come to realize that much of the joy that used to characterize my personality in my youth was somehow gone. I know, we all grow and change and life is so serious and important, etc. But I have always believed that my silliness, my happiness, that smiling from within regardless of external situations, was a result of my connection to something deeper and more permanent than life’s vagaries. And I’ve been feeling like that connection has been strained at best, perhaps near to the breaking point.
Looking back, I realize that those times in my life when the connection I’ve just described has been at its strongest, have been those times when I have been at my most creative. For example, in my teens, I had some friends from a church youth group that I used to sing and rap with. It was never at anything near a professional level, but it was definitely not too shabby! We would perform for the youth group and sometimes in Sunday services, and we would always have a blast!! During High School and later, when I attended The College of the Bahamas, I was a part of the Drama Club and participated in a few skits, plays and productions. And I’ve always liked to dance! But these types of pursuits have not been a part of my life now for several years – and I’m realizing that I miss them, because these were my creative outlets.
I hope that taking this class in Creativity will help me to reconnect with that part of my personality, and help to strengthen my link with the Ultimate Universal Creative Force. Some may call this powerful force Divinity, or God or Allah – I know her, like all her children do, by many Names. And I know that reducing any perceived separation or distance between us will allow me to manifest more creativity in my life. I believe the results will be an increase in my productivity, a revived ability to find new and unusual solutions to the challenges I face, a sense of personal growth and development and rising levels of personal power, self-confidence and joie de vivre.
Wonderful! Very thoughtful! You are intrinsically motivated.